Australia is astoundingly rich, +$100k higher than the US average (which includes the megawealthy)
You’re reading the data wrong. Australian median = $225K, US average = $244K.
Overall, I have doubts about their methodology. The source publication is here and there are some… non-intuitive numbers in there. For example, page 92 shows changes in household wealth between 2012 and 2013. According to their estimates, the Swedes became richer by 15.5% and the Japanese poorer by over 20% in a single year. That looks fishy to me.
But yeah. Australians made out like bandits (ahem) selling ore to China.
Fixed. I was using the mean wealth instead of net mean wealth. It’s still amazing to me that the Aussie average exceeds the US average, given that the averages include megawealthy tech and finance billionaires. And amazing that Greece and Italy have higher median wealth than the US.
US culture is extraordinarily spendy, which arguably is good for GDP but bad for individual wealth except for those whose individual wealth benefits from corporate gain (who are mostly well above the median and therefore don’t affect the median wealth).
You’re reading the data wrong. Australian median = $225K, US average = $244K.
Overall, I have doubts about their methodology. The source publication is here and there are some… non-intuitive numbers in there. For example, page 92 shows changes in household wealth between 2012 and 2013. According to their estimates, the Swedes became richer by 15.5% and the Japanese poorer by over 20% in a single year. That looks fishy to me.
But yeah. Australians made out like bandits (ahem) selling ore to China.
Fixed. I was using the mean wealth instead of net mean wealth. It’s still amazing to me that the Aussie average exceeds the US average, given that the averages include megawealthy tech and finance billionaires. And amazing that Greece and Italy have higher median wealth than the US.
US culture is extraordinarily spendy, which arguably is good for GDP but bad for individual wealth except for those whose individual wealth benefits from corporate gain (who are mostly well above the median and therefore don’t affect the median wealth).